Insights

NAHC Comments on the President-Elect Donald Trump Era

Posted on Wednesday, November 16, 2016 7:35 PM

The outcome of the presidential election presents the nation with several opportunities for many industries. Donald Trump promised that he would cut regulations, which is wonderful news for the home health care and hospice industries.

The home health and home care industry have recently faced several changes, including the Pre-Claim Review Demonstration from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the elimination of the overtime exemption rule.

“There’s a great opportunity to revisit a number of rules,” Bill Dombi, NAHC’s vice president for law, said during the web event Tuesday. “At the top our list is the face-to-face requirements, along with the pre-claim review action that came out of CMS.”

“Why we see great opportunity with the new Congress and administration [is because] we have strong Republican support for a legislative effort to modify the regulatory elements,” Dombi said. “With a new CMS administration, Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, and others, we hope we can get them to back off the onerous documentation requirements.”

However, the changes are not expected to happen immediately.

“I myself am optimistic,” Dombi said. “Let me temper that with the nearly 5,000 jobs that President-elect Trump has to fill in agencies from secretaries on down. The turnover on leadership will make the changes not happen right away.”

Another great promise from the President-elect Trump was to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Neither Republicans nor Donald Trump have put forth an “adequate” replacement plan that would account for those 20 million Americans’ coverage, according to Prue Fitzpatrick, vice president for government affairs at NAHC.

“It will be interesting to see how a campaign slogan translates into actually governing without taking health care away from 20 million Americans,” Fitzpatrick said during the panel discussion. “It’s difficult [to repeal] since the ACA and health care system at large has so many components to it.”

The best health care plan to analyze in terms of what might replace the ACA is Paul Ryan’s “Better Way” plan, NAHC executives say. As a whole, home health will benefit from this shift.

“No matter what anyone’s position is, step back and look at the tremendous opportunity on the regulatory side and industry side,” said Fitzpatrick. “It doesn’t matter what party is in power, there are a lot of good minds in Washington looking to lower cost of care and looking at quality of outcomes.”